Beautiful Friendship
by Kates
Summary: Crossover story, full of improbabilities and possibly IMPOSSIBILITIES...but you might like it anyhow. We set our scene in Washington State, somewhere between A.D. 2007 and 2019. Oneshot...?
1. Post Mortem

_Post Mortem_

Well…it turned out there were other ways of making your life worthwhile.

His former mistress, Revenge, had revealed herself to be a nasty kind of business.

But Retribution?

_That_ was _much_ better.

* * *

Tawny eyes still focused with sharp attention to the text and grainy images scrolling on his computer screen, the man whom some of the world knew simply as "Eyes Only" sat back in his chair and considered the words he'd just finished reading. 

_Manticore…transgenic experimentation…_

And _most interestingly…_

X5-452.

He turned to the side, slightly, and clicked the replay command on his remote. The six closed-circuit security camera screens that loomed over his desk immediately showed the exact same image.

_And there...almost invisible even in the high-powered night vision mode on the cameras, slipping through the inky dark like some sort of feline who had every right to be where she was…_

He leaned in closer again, and felt the good side of his mouth etch into its adapted caricature of a smirk, as he paused the recording, and zoomed in on the lithe intruder's sable-coated image. He'd never seen leather so exquisitely form-fitting.

…Let alone had he seen a creature so intoxicatingly untamed.

And so _inhumanly _beautiful.

She couldn't possibly be mistaken for a normal human. She _wasn't_ a normal human. And _yet_…no one else had realized the truth about her. They all had to be either stark raving mad, or blind.

_Probably both,_ he thought, with another smirk. _People these days…_

He let the recording continue playing, watching the captivating siren who had waltzed off with not one, but _two _of his Chinese imperial vases. Had his father been alive, he would have flipped his lid at the theft. In spite of being his father's son, however…

Well, letting his thief waltz in and make a killing off the priceless things she'd stolen from him was all part of his plan. His thief. He'd started thinking of her as that when he'd first tracked her down. His thief. She just didn't have a single clue of it yet.

Another case of blindness—but one that was almost at its end.

Sometimes…people's inability to see everything was every bit as useful as it was irksome.

In his particular case…it was painful, but necessary.

He'd tried hard to keep his thoughts from straying thousands of miles away from his new, life-consuming work…thousands of miles back to New York City…to the shambles of a penthouse apartment and a chrome-lined room full of bloodstained shadows and mad laughter and acrid chemical fumes…to memories of another life, where friends and family were often as much enemies as they were friends…

He knew he'd never be able to abide the sight of a spider again—much less would he be able to find the willpower in himself to kill one.

Something had brought life back to him that night. Something had forced air gasping back into his lungs, making him choke his way out of unconsciousness. Something had made him think of one thing—

_Escape!_

Then the next—

_Run!_

And the next—

_Hide!_

And finally—

_Stay…and help_.

He had helped.

Shortly after his flight to Washington state, while he was still holding himself prisoner in his own home—another penthouse apartment, less grand than the last but still a multimillion dollar gilded cage for his exile—the Pulse decimated most of the country. The government retreated into itself, leaving the people to fend off chaos and ruin on their own—which they'd found with every bit as much ease as his cynical mind had predicted. Corruption and crime had taken their bloody toll over the years—and continued to do so even now. The streets were a labyrinth of ill-fortune.

But European investments were a thing of wonder, and he'd kept his money through it all. And after watching for several months as the city he lived in tore itself apart…he'd chosen to do something. After all…no one else was.

His friends would have been proud of him, in spite of everything that had happened. It was…unfortunate, to say the least…that he could never let them know he was alive. For one thing, one very important thing…they'd never understand.

And he'd done enough to their lives.

Now…he was on his own, and he was doing what was right, and for the first time in his life, he felt as though he was something. Someone. Someone strong.

He stood up, wincing slightly as the nerves in his leg—which would never heal from the damage that the explosion did to them—sent a twinge of pain into his system. That was the convenient serendipity about being a hero of sorts, though: you could be the most messed-up figure in the world, and no one _had_ to see you, ever.

_No one had to see the real **you**, at least…_

And heck if they'd _want_ to see him now.

He left the computer screens to hibernate, and slipped into the black-and-red upholstered den of his plush apartment. But tonight, instead of sitting down in front of the sixty-inch plasma television screen to watch Dark City yet again…he pushed open the terrace door, and leaned against the doorframe for a moment, staring listlessly out over the city skyline for a long, long moment.

Then he returned inside: to think, and to wait.

He left the door wide open, the gauzy red curtain rippling in the warm summer breeze as a beckoning, almost taunting invitation.

_Here, kitty-kitty…_


	2. Cat and Mouse

_Cat and Mouse_

…He was taunting her.

Max crouched low on the concrete ledge, fingertips idly brushing the surface that was her perch: more for the simple visceral feel of the thing than balance. She scraped her teeth over her lower lip, gold-flecked eyes narrowing at the sight of the open terrace door.

He wasn't stupid. She'd never seen him, but she'd surmised the intelligence of the man she was robbing on her first…_visit_…to his gorgeous sky-high residence. If the walls and walls of books weren't enough proof of that, the carefully matched artwork _was_. And if _that_ hadn't been enough…she'd seen his computer room. She'd seen the elaborate encoded printouts. No…this wasn't some stupid rich brat she was dealing with.

And he knew that she'd been there.

And he was waiting for her.

She watched the window of the room that she knew was his bedroom.

No sign of light—no sign of life either. Neither added up to very good odds for her, especially if he was feeling trigger-happy or just so happened to have a side of beef with a walkie-talkie and a taser hanging around.

Max hated, loathed, and _abhorred_ security guards.

…But this opportunity…he was baiting her…and heck if she could pass that up.

She wasn't afraid of playing a little cat and mouse.

_Cat DNA…it'll do it to ya, every time…_

And she leapt down off the ledge, to the balcony below.

_Let's play then._

* * *

Of course…knowing that he'd be waiting didn't keep her from feeling just a tad bit on edge once she'd nimbly hopped over the railing of his penthouse balcony. As she slipped inside, every genetically-enhanced nerve on edge, she flicked her eyes left and right.

No sign of her elusive antagonist.

_Oh, don't you dare come out at me with a gun…I'm **so** not in the mood for it tonight…_

She spotted it, again: her most coveted quarry, the onyx Egyptian goddess statue, crouched on her pedestal of black marble with the spotlight in the ceiling lending her its perpetual golden glow.

"Oh _baby_…" she breathed, with a bit of a smirk.

Well, if he wasn't going to show up the moment she arrived…he couldn't blame her for retaliating to his disreputable guest-treatment.

She crept towards the statue…

Then she heard the dry, crisply tenor tones of her opponent.

"Hi there. Bit later than last time, aren't you?"

_Doorway._

She turned, with every bit of slowly unfurling ease that she felt, and faced him. He was tall, with short-cropped hair that was either curly or wavy; she couldn't tell which it was, on first glance, and the dense shadows and the light from behind him threw her vision for a loop. He wore a pair of dark slacks and a lighter shirt, both of which accented his figure to a mouthwatering extent. Broad shoulders, proportionate chest that whittled down into a trim waist, both slender and toned.

_Mrrrrrowl._

He nodded to the statue.

"You have good taste. French, 1920's, attributed to Chitarus."

_Nice. He **is** a brat then._

"Whoever _that_ is."

He seemed unfazed by her disdain.

"So…what?" He nodded to the statue. "You liked it because…it was _shiny_…?"

_Hah. It **does** have a brain after all._

"No—because it's the Egyptian goddess Bast."

"Who is…?" He was goading her again.

"The goddess who comprehends all goddesses…" She couldn't help but eye the beautifully gleaming statue with an undisguised admiration. "Eye of Ra, protector, avenger, and destroyer, giver of life, who lives forever…" She trailed off, and turned her liquid sable eyes on him again, eyebrow arched and lips puckered in a smirk again. "I could keep going…"

She heard something that sounded suspiciously like…a _chuckle_...from him. He pushed himself away from the doorframe, and sauntered into the room. She didn't fail to notice that he was keeping very well into the shadows.

"Did you ever notice how cats always seem to turn up around dinnertime…?"

"Thanks, but I won't be staying," she informed him: watching him as he moved. "…You've really got _some_ nerve."

Another low chuckle.

"Noted…"

She eyed him, curiously. What reason would some rich guy have to be so cagey? It was as though he was afraid of the light or something…and somehow, she didn't feel at all like trying to look closer. And she didn't understand why.

"Fact of the matter is…I more or less invited you here tonight because I had to see you. I just couldn't get you off my mind."

That wasn't hitting on her—that was a double-sided comment if she'd ever heard one.

"You need to get out more," she drawled.

He paused…and she could feel his eyes on her.

"C'mere…I want to show you something."

He moved forward, circling behind her, and suddenly both his hands—his gloved hands, she noticed—were on her shoulders. She could have turned on him and snapped his neck then. She'd done it before. That's what they'd _built_ her to do.

But she let him steer her over to the wall where a gorgeously ornate framed mirror hung above the sideboard.

She didn't look over her shoulder at him, and when she eyed the mirror—head quirking to one side—she didn't bother looking at his image in its silvery depths.

"Gold leaf…art nouveau…French…early nineteen hundreds…I could probably fence this for three or four grand," she decided.

"No. I meant _this_."

And one of the black-gloved hands pointed to her reflection in the mirror. As she was turning his words over and over in her mind, he clarified the statement for her.

"Probably the most singularly beautiful face I have ever seen."

_...What…?_

Men didn't compliment her like this. Especially men whose homes she'd broken into, men whose million dollar trinkets she'd stolen and sold off on the streets. And she knew that he knew that was precisely what she'd done.

She'd been taken off guard. She could admit that.

"Expensive gifts, surprise late-night rendezvous, over-the-top flattery…you _always_ come on this strong?"

She smiled slightly, unable and unwilling to hide her pleased amusement at the words, and turned her head to the side, angling her face up a bit. She was nearly favored with a glimpse of his shadowy features before he pulled them back even further into the shadows in the room.

Then his hands were brushing against her neck with feather-lightness, and she felt the warmth of him even closer behind her as he leaned in…she didn't pull away.

"Only when I meet someone that I have to know _everything_ about."

He caressed the raven strands of her silky curls off her neck, and she could have sworn that she'd felt his lips brush the skin there. She didn't resist.

"What…are you doing…?" she forced herself to breathe. His nearness was distracting her close to madness.

Then the warning bells went off. The bar code, on the back of her neck…he'd been looking…oh _no_. She jerked back as though his touch had burnt her, but he was already letting go: stepping away as she turned angry, accusing eyes on him and his betrayal. She could almost see his self-satisfied smirk as he spoke.

"—And now I think I know pretty much everything."

But before she could launch herself at him, much less say anything coherent, he swerved the topic of their discussion into a completely different vein.

"Suppose I could help you locate the other ones."

"The other ones…?" _Play it dumb, Max, just play it dumb!_

"The other ones like you…"

"You lost me." _How does he know?!_

She could sense his reproachful look at her.

"C'mon, Max. First I watch on my cameras as you dive headfirst out of my window, fifteen stories up, like you're Rocky the flying squirrel. Then I found this in your apartment."

_He knows my name? He found my apartment?! How did he—?_

Suddenly, the cat and mouse game wasn't so funny anymore.

And she was ever so very, very slightly afraid.

He'd pulled a vial of pills out of his pocket.

"L-Triptophane…a neurotransmitter sometimes used in homeopathy to control seizures. Then the light bulb went off."

Her anger was nearly choking her at that point.

"You went to my apartment? How did you—_you went through my things_?!"

He turned and walked through the doorway again…into the computer room she'd seen on her first time burglarizing his apartment. Throttling back her rage, she followed him, and watched as he sat down at the desk, beginning to type on the keyboard immediately.

He spoke without turning around to face her.

"I got an anonymous report a couple years ago from a guy who says he was a lab tech at a covert genetics lab in the Wyoming mountains…"

* * *

And he proceeded to tell her how he knew—through his various and exceedingly effective sources—practically everything about her. The last thing he'd needed to know was the final proof of her true identity, seen by him in person: the barcode tattoo on her neck, the brand of her status as a human weapon, a being composed of all the best DNA traits available to the living world.

By the end of it all, she could do nothing more than stand where she was, and stare at the back of his neck. His hair was curly—cut very short, but curly—and it was a dark auburn-tinted brown shade, with a few stray wheat-coloured highlights in it.

She still had yet to see his face.

He'd told her how he knew about her past, about her brothers and sisters who'd also escaped Manticore that nightmarish, arctic night, and…

"…And you said you could help…?"

She eyed the back of his head with sharp suspicion.

He nodded, his gaze apparently still focused on the computer screen.

"I need to find the technician, or anyone else who knows about Project Manticore. They would've used surrogate mothers to carry you after the in-vitro work…if I can track down one of them…"

_This sounds too good. Way **too** good._

"What's in it for you?" she bit off, cutting into his musings.

Finally, he turned to look at her.

"I want to help."

…And suddenly, she knew it was true, and all she could do was nod. She didn't know how she knew. Everything reasonable and real would have said she couldn't know it was true. But she did. She inhaled, and stuck out her hand towards him.

"Max. Max Guevera. _Not_ X5-452. Just Max."

The left side of his mouth quirked into what she supposed was his awkward version of a smile, while the right side stayed motionless: immovably pulled back into a painful grimace by the horrific, gash-like scars on that half of his face. _Fire…? Could a fire have done that much damage? An explosion…maybe…?_

He stood up—and shook her hand, his fingers closing over hers, surprisingly warm through the black leather gloves.

"Harry Osborne. Or Eyes Only. But I'd like it to be just Harry."

And somehow, they both smiled.

* * *

"_I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship…"_

* * *

_ With all due credit to the writers of the pilot episode of James Cameron's Dark Angel, the creators of Dark Angel and Spiderman, and the lovely Jessica Alba and the gorgeous James Franco._

_ Whaddya think, kids...  
_

_Harry and Max...?  
_


End file.
